20 October 2026

Platform ekultura.lt Named Lithuania’s Best Digital Culture and Heritage Solution

The ekultura.lt platform (hereinafter referred to as ekultūra), developed by the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania together with 22 partners, won the “Culture and Heritage” category of the annual “Digital Book Carrier 2026” competition. The competition is the national selection stage for the United Nations-supported World Summit Awards (WSA).

“The victory of the national ekultūra platform, launched only in May this year, in the ‘Digital Book Carrier’ competition confirms that the platform is a significant step towards bringing together Lithuania’s cultural content and making it easily accessible to everyone,” says Aušrinė Žilinskienė, Director General of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania (LNB).

According to her, this is only the beginning, as a considerable share of Lithuania’s cultural content is still awaiting digitisation and public access, while the platform has enormous growth potential.

“This recognition is important not only to our team and partners—it shows that the national digital culture infrastructure created through our joint efforts is relevant, innovative and generates value for society as a whole. And not only for Lithuania: the opportunity to represent the country in the World Summit Awards opens a new chapter—the chance to present our solution and the diversity of Lithuania’s culture to the international digital innovation community,” A. Žilinskienė emphasises.

This year, the “Digital Book Carrier” jury selected 22 finalists from 49 submitted applications. The winners in eight categories will now be nominated for the global WSA stage, where they will undergo international selection. Organised annually since 2003 by the State Digital Solutions Agency together with its partners, the competition recognises innovative digital products created in Lithuania that have a tangible impact on people’s daily lives—services, applications, platforms and other digital solutions. 

Not the First “Digital Book Carrier” Recognition 

According to Ieva Žilionienė, Chair of the “Digital Book Carrier” jury, Lithuania’s national WSA expert and a member of the WSA Board of Directors, technological sophistication is not the only consideration when assessing competition entries. The primary focus is on the real problem a solution addresses, the value it creates for people and the new opportunities it opens up for them. 

“In the field of culture and heritage, there is another important dimension. One of the WSA’s global objectives is to help preserve and promote cultural and linguistic diversity, local content and heritage in the digital sphere. This is particularly important for smaller countries such as Lithuania: digital technologies make it possible not only to preserve their culture, but also to make it easier to discover, access and see worldwide. The ekultūra platform aligns extremely well with this WSA mission,” I. Žilionienė emphasises. 

The ekultūra platform is already the second digital culture solution administered by the LNB to win the “Digital Book Carrier” competition. Three years ago, the Cultural Education System received two awards in the competition: it was named the “Best Solution for Lithuania” and won the audience award. 

According to A. Žilinskienė, these awards demonstrate the LNB’s consistent contribution to developing advanced digital culture solutions that create value for society. 

Not Just a Platform, but National Infrastructure

The ekultūra platform is not merely a cultural content platform, but also national digital culture infrastructure connecting more than 150 Lithuanian cultural institutions, their information systems and data. In a single space, it brings together cultural heritage, contemporary culture, its various formats and user-generated content. 

The National Library coordinates the provision of Lithuania’s cultural heritage content to Europeana, Europe’s largest digital cultural heritage platform. Consequently, ekultūra also serves as Lithuania’s gateway to the common European digital cultural space. 

The platform began its life cycle at the start of summer 2026, and its first months of operation were dedicated to testing and improvement.